That is a mistake, and this redoubled commitment to endless war should be immediately reversed. U.S. military intervention in Somalia is exacerbating political instability without contributing to the security of the American or Somali people. This is not our fight, and we should stop fighting it.

Like all countries, the United States lives in a world with finite resources. We are still the wealthiest, most secure country on the planet. Rather than compounding our fiscal challenges by papering over them with even more borrowing and spending, the federal government should rethink U.S. grand strategy. We should abandon peripheral missions and focus on strengthening our nation and our military.

The best way forward is to continue deterring North Korea, support continued productive engagement and all moves toward peace—especially negotiations between Seoul and Pyongyang—and continue working on the diplomatic front to open North Korea and minimize the threat of war.

America had an enduring interest in ensuring that the Continent not fall under the domination of a single, capable, hostile power: That could pose a serious threat to America. The Truman administration was clear on this point: The main purpose of stationing American military forces in Europe in the early 1950s was to stay long enough to right the balance of power, not to stay forever.

If President Trump was serious about transitioning the U.S. out of endless wars, he would end the war in Afghanistan and pull out all U.S. forces. The United States can protect our people, defend the homeland, and snuff out transnational terrorists without stationing American soldiers in Afghanistan forever. Anything less is more of the same and will only prolong an extravagantly expensive and utterly discredited strategy.

So little has changed in eight years that Paul and Udall this week introduced legislation which nearly could be copied verbatim from their 2011 push for withdrawal because it’s up against the same stale commitment to permanent intervention. The 2019 American Forces Going Home After Noble (AFGHAN) Service Act has updated numbers—higher counts of U.S. troops killed or wounded in Afghanistan, and a larger tally of borrowed tax dollars spent and often wasted—but its core demand of a quick and responsible exit from the longest war in U.S. history is unaltered.

This push for U.S.-orchestrated regime change is no surprise coming from Rubio, but regardless of its source, the proposal should be given no quarter. This is a humanitarian crisis, not a security threat. American military might is not the solution to Venezuela’s woes, and even calling for this sort of intervention may exacerbate an already horrifying situation.

With President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un two weeks away from their second summit in eight months, many journalists, pundits, and experts have focused on the question of what nuclear concessions the U.S. will secure. But there is a bigger story for those willing to see it: After nearly seven decades of mutual distrust, the U.S. and North Korea could find a way to coexist peacefully. In the grand scheme of things, this is the objective that will determine whether current diplomacy can be labeled as a success.

Only naivete could deny the possibility of some ISIS resurgence or evolution in the wake of U.S. departure from Syria. That should go without saying. But since the possibility has been raised, it should be seen as an indictment of our existing strategy and an impetus to change course. It certainly does not justify prolonging U.S. entanglement in Syria’s civil war.

Despite what the Trump administration says, Saudi Arabia is not anally. When national security interests coincide, Washington shouldcooperate with the Saudis as it would with any country that sharessimilar goals. But when those interests diverge, Washington shouldshow the courage to go its own way. American leaders must make itclear that United States support is not an entitlement.

Apologists for NATO point out that European defense budgets have increased, though spending remains wholly inadequate. The American people, whose sons and daughters are already pledged to defend 27 European nations an ocean away, deserve an explanation for why their country remains the anchor and the banker of an alliance that can’t fight.

It is not Washington’s responsibility to serve as Kabul’s long-term security protector - nor is such a policy politically, economically, or militarily sustainable. The Afghans need to solve their own political and social problems. This could take years, if it ever happens. The American people don’t want to wait years for the troops to come home - they want them home now.

The president rightly decried the ludicrous suggestion from some Senate Republicans that ending U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Syria would be “precipitous,” listing in compelling terms the high price in blood and treasure these lengthy – and in many ways futile – conflicts have exacted. But elsewhere in his State of the Union speech, Trump’s message was rather more muddled. We’re leaving these endless wars, the president said – but we’re staying, too, and we just might escalate again, including against new targets like Iran

A recent website scan of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees shows no hearings scheduled on the growing crisis in Venezuela and only boilerplate statements from committee leaders asking for more information from the administration or in support of President Trump’s actions.

We should hope Ambassador Khalilzad succeeds as he makes the rounds in regional capitals and engages in long negotiating sessions with the Taliban. But even if he doesn’t, America’s involvement in the Afghan war should come to an end.

At the very least, Americans should seriously debate NATO’s role in today’s world, moving beyond platitudes. NATO requires of America serious obligations—we’re talking about potentially risking nuclear war if one of NATO’s members were involved in a conflict. Above all, our policymakers need to put the American people and our troops first.

Letting the Afghan war “muddle along” has been a grievous mistake. Since 2002, roughly 2,500 American service-members and 4,000 American contractors have been killed in Afghanistan, including four just over Thanksgiving. As John Kerry asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, after returning from that other quagmire in Vietnam, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

U.S. withdrawal would not fix Afghanistan’s problems—and the violence that has plagued that country since long before American troops deployed in 2001 will continue for the foreseeable future. But it requires a break from reality to argue that staying put offers any plausible route to U.S.-orchestrated peace. Extending this generational conflict will only add to the list of unintended and unwanted consequences of years-long occupation. It will only increase the costs of Washington’s strategic foreign policy failure, mire us deeper in a futile nation-building project, and foster anger and chaos instead of the stability Afghanistan needs.

Unexpected federal spending must be an option for emergencies, but the consequences cannot be ignored. Instead of trying and failing to pursue immediate offsets, however, a more realistic approach would recoup those costs over several years. Congress could still address immediate challenges without losing sight of the big picture. That’s the balance the American people expect their public servants to strike on their behalf.

It’s time for the foreign policy elite in Washington to finally reach the conclusion many Americans reached years ago: while the U.S. is immensely influential, it has neither the power, influence, or interest to solve other people’s political problems.

That is unfortunate because the initial push to draw down U.S. military intervention in Somalia was the right one. If Trump isn’t planning to draw down U.S. intervention in Somalia, he should be. Counter-terror in Somalia is a parochial issue which poses no existential threat to America, and there’s no reason for Washington to do Mogadishu’s job.

Syria was becoming a distraction to the great-power strategy the Trump administration should resource. By getting out of Syria, the U.S. nips further mission creep in the bud and refocuses the national security bureaucracy on the priorities that can impact America’s security and economic prosperity.

Trump is right to accept victory in Syria. By September, the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria had lost 99 percent of the territory its vaunted caliphate once held, according to a Pentagon inspector general’s report. With the last vestiges of ISIS territory in Syria falling to U.S.-backed forces in recent days, the goal that drew America into Syria is achieved.

It will be one of the many ironies of the Trump administration if the short-term seduction of a bit of free real estate undermines what might otherwise have turned out to be one of the administration’s few foreign-policy successes: the improvement of alliance burden sharing, an objective sought not only by this President, but by all of his predecessors.

When a project is so grossly mismanaged, that alone should raise strategic questions: Is this something we need to do? Is it crucial to U.S. security? Is it protecting vital U.S. interests and keeping Americans safe? Do the American people even want this done on their behalf? Don’t only ask whether the price for U.S. support of the Saudi war in Yemen was right; ask if it was right for the United States to be involved at all: Should we have refueled those bombers in the first place? Polling indicates most Americans say “no,” and with good reason.

The Pentagon doesn’t need more appropriations of taxpayer money—it needs a foreign policy leadership willing to recognize that nearly two decades of counterinsurgency, regime change campaigns, and meandering wars have degraded the U.S. military and put extreme pressure on the U.S. Treasury.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment must undergo a reassessment of Washington’s relationships with both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, viewing them less as the antidote for the region’s systemic security problems and more as the transactional arrangements they have been for decades.

The United States has remained the major military power and leader within NATO by an enormous margin. As a result, all European NATO armies, not just the Germans, have shortchanged common defense by free riding on American power. This defense welfare, funded by the American taxpayer, serves no one’s interests.

The U.S. would be able to pass on much of the cost of protecting Europe—in both blood and treasure—to Europeans themselves, who are already geopolitically situated to stand up for Western interests, in tandem with their American allies, in relation to Russia and non-state threats from Africa and the Middle East.

Our mission

To inform citizens, thought leaders, and policymakers of the importance of a strong, dynamic military—used more judiciously to protect America's narrowly defined national interests—and promote a realistic grand strategy prioritizing restraint, diplomacy, and free trade to ensure U.S. security.